"But, Edith, you haven't ever talked like this--before," puzzled the doctor, frowning. "I've never known before that Burke Denby was building bridges for the Hottentots." "Nonsense! That's their business. They've always built bridges." "Yes, but Master Burke and his father haven't always gone to superintend their construction," she flashed. "In other words, if Burke Denby is trying so strenuously to get away from himself, it's a pretty sure sign that there's something in himself that he wants to get away from! You see?" "Well, I should like to see," sighed the doctor, with very evident doubt. CHAPTER XVI EMERGENCIES In September Helen Denby and Dorothy Elizabeth went to London. With their going, a measure of peace came to Frank Gleason. Not having their constant presence to remind him of his friend's domestic complications, he could the more easily adopt his sister's complacent attitude of cheery confidence that it would all come out right in time--that it _must_ come out right. Furthermore, with Helen not under his own roof, he was not so guiltily conscious of "aiding and abetting" a friend's runaway wife. Soon after Helen's departure for London, a letter from Burke Denby in far-away South America told of the Denbys' rejoicing at the happy outcome of the Arctic trip, and expressed the hope that the doctor was well, and that they might meet him as soon as possible after their return from South America in December. The letter was friendly and cordial, but not long. It told little of their work, and nothing of themselves. And, in spite of its verbal cordiality, the doctor felt, at its conclusion, that he had, as it were, been attending a formal reception when he had hoped for a cozy chat by the fire. In December, at Burke's bidding, he ran up to Dalton for a brief visit, but it proved to be as stiff and unsatisfying as the letter had been. Burke never mentioned his wife; but he wore so unmistakable an "Of-course-I-understand-you-are-angry-with-me" air, that the doctor (much to his subsequent vexation when he realized it) went out of his way to be heartily cordial, as if in refutation of the disapproval idea--which was not the impression the doctor really wished to convey at all. He was, in fact, very angry with Burke. He wanted nothing so much as to give him a piece of his mind. Yet, so potent was Burke's dignified aloofness that he found himself chattering of Inca antiquities and Babylonian tablets instead of delivering his planned dissertation on the futility of quarrels in general and of Burke's and Helen's in particular. With John Denby he had little better success, so far as results were concerned; though he did succeed in asking a few questions. "You have never heard from--Mrs. Denby?" he began abruptly, the minute he found himself alone with Burke's father. "Never." "But you--you would like to!"